ORIGINAL ART : Halloween 2013


     These three thingies are made of plywood and acrylic paint, including glitter paint and silver paint, and even some pearlescent paint on the moon. Anthony and I got a jigsaw so we could cut around the general shapes. The jigsaw is REALLY FUN. Plus we had to get sawhorses, and I tried to lay across them but Anthony stopped me.


     I did the drawings, and Anthony helped a LOT with the painting on the Jack-O-Lantern and the Memento Mori Bat. Plus he did a bunch of the sawing and the sanding. We're very handy.


     The Jack-O-Lantern is hanging on the porch post, and the bat will go on the garage, just below the big light that comes on at night. Not sure where we're putting Umbrella Girl, yet.


     This last line drawing is just a quick thing I did at work, because they asked me to do a Halloween drawing to put on the treat bags we're doing for the student helpers.
     In mostly unrelated news, I dressed up as a zebra for a costume party on Saturday. It was a pathetic attempt at a costume, and when I got home I accidentally peed on my tail.

IN THE DREAMHOUSE : Wake Up Screaming

     Last night around 3:30 I was having a nightmare so bad I started screaming FULL-VOLUME, while still sound asleep, and my husband had to shake me awake. As you would expect, he was pretty freaked out, and said of all the times I've started screaming in my sleep, this was definitely the worst and loudest. He was very concerned, and I had to reassure him that I was totally fine.
     It was weird, because usually I wake MYSELF up with the dream-screaming, and it's usually sort of "sub-volume," which is still disturbing enough. But this time I could tell I was full-out screaming, and yet I wasn't waking up. It was like I was stuck in the nightmare.
     It was disorienting and freaky. The emotion in the nightmare was total anguish, not fear, which made it even worse. It's harder to come down from anguish, than from fear. Don't you think?
     When I was coherent enough to glance at the clock, it was exactly 3:33, and if you follow Satan on Twitter, you'll know 3:33 a.m. is considered the "Devil's Hour," by various different creepy interpretations. So I was like, "Shit!" (Because I saw The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and I know how that all played out.)
     As I lay there panting and waiting for my pulse to stop racing, I looked over at Anthony, who was lying next to me, wide-eyed, with one hand on my shoulder, and thought, "Wow, I am SUCH a catch!"
     Then I got a case of the giggles, and had to explain myself. What a freak. I kept picturing myself lying there in bed SCREAMING, and poor Anthony panicking and thinking WTF, and I couldn't stop laughing. So I had to get up and get a drink of water and read some comics for a while.
     I'm a very happy person by day! I don't know why I'm such a freak in Dreamland.
   
(P.S.- I'm kidding about Satan on Twitter. I mean, maybe he does have an account, but I don't follow him, and I have no idea if he's divulged anything about 3:33 a.m.)

IN THE DREAMHOUSE : Puppets, Aliens, Jan Brady, Bjork, and Separation Anxiety



     Last night I struggled to keep my head above a stew of disorienting dreams that all bled into each other. I'm not sure of the order of these things, but here are the various elements:


     I was hanging out with Jan Brady, and we were looking through a bunch of old photos of us together as children, at birthday parties and such. The photos were obviously from the 70s. They were square, and had that distinctive coloring to them. I wasn't sure if Jan was actually Jan Brady, or just a family member or friend who looked a lot like her, and I didn't want to offend her by the comparison, and not knowing if she really WAS Jan Brady or not.


     Bjork (or possibly Mimi, a longtime library friend I met when she was in charge of the children's room at the Santa Ana Public Library) and I were receiving help from eerie yet beneficent aliens in order to operate a large machine. The machine (like the photos of Jan and me) looked distinctly 70s-era. It was that gross tan/beige/Band-Aid color, very large and blocky, with reels and slots and lots of buttons. It also had color ink cartridges. Bjork (or Mimi) and I were trying to thread long strips of film through it, but we couldn't figure out which slots or trays to put it in.
     I don't know what the purpose of this machine was. It was all very mysterious and exciting. But the aliens' instructions were too complicated and confusing, and we just couldn't figure it out. My dad was hanging out nearby in another room, and wandered by to say, "Wow. It's amazing that even WITH alien assistance, that thing is still too complex to figure out."

The one in the dream looked kind of like this.

     Anthony and I were with a big group of friends up in L.A. at some sort of art/performance event. Lots of people performing one after the other. Everyone there was actually performing briefly at some point, even Anthony and me. There was an organized line-up, with Anthony and me following Matt and the rest of our group of friends. Anthony was last, so as I followed Matt into the performance area, Anthony was in back and I lost sight of him.
     I was involved with these big elaborate European marionettes made of papier mache. In the back of the venue there were shelves full of them, and they were totally cool. One of them was even a Saint Nicholas/Santa Claus. I discovered that they had hinged mouths, and their bodies unscrewed at the waist line so you could remove the lower half and put your hand up into the torso in order to work levers that opened and closed the mouth. The mouth made clicking noises that fascinated me.
     I guess it was designed with the detachable lower half so that you could convert the marionette into a hand puppet. The strings and crossbar must be removable.
     I did my brief performance, whatever that was (details not included in dream), and grabbed my Santa puppet and made my way past the curators in the lobby and out the front door. I joined my friends and we all waited for Anthony, who should have been right behind me.
     Other performers started coming out, and I grew puzzled, and then anxious. Anthony had been RIGHT BEHIND ME in line. I went around back to the rooms where the performers were all lined up ready to go, and searched for Anthony everywhere. No sign of him, and everyone I asked knew nothing about him. I circled back out to the lobby and asked the curators, who also showed no sign of knowing anything about Anthony.
     By that time I was getting panicky. I wanted to call or text Anthony on my cell phone, but of course it wasn't working and I was getting weird error messages I didn't understand. I stashed the Santa puppet in the car in the parking lot and went back circling through the venue. No sign of Anthony ANYWHERE. I could feel it in my chest, this horrible constricting ache.
     I noticed that there were a lot of former classmates from high school in the line-up waiting to perform. Not all of them nice. I started fearing that maybe some dangerous bully types had abducted Anthony. It turned into this awful cycle of me going through all the rooms of the venue, searching, asking people, then out into the parking lot, desperately trying to get my cell to work, then back into the venue searching...
     At some point I finally woke up, and went straight into the living room to find Anthony, who had woken up before me. I gave him a big hug.


WORK DOODLES


I SHALL SMITE YOU WITH MY FLACCID NOSE!
(done during meeting while new boss was speaking. The dot in upper right corner was added by coworker on my right, and the lipstick coloring on tongue by the coworker on my left. Teamwork in action.)

HEY, WAIT UP!
(done between dealings with parents and students)

WITCH AND VEGEMINIONS
(done between dealings with parents and students)

GENDER NEUTRAL BEING WITH CAT HEAD ON STRING
(done during stupid meeting activity about personality types)

COURTNEY LOVE


     Just finished reading PEACE, COURTNEY LOVE, AND UNDERSTANDING, Debbie Stoller's interview with Courtney Love from the June/July 2013 issue of BUST magazine.
     I'm an unashamed forever-fan of Courtney Love as a cultural anti-hero. Love all her music, love watching her, listening to her, and if there were a 24-hour Courtney channel I'd be glued to it. She's confusing and contradictory and complex. Like most truly great art, it's best to look/listen/watch, rather than judge/analyze/categorize. There's real energy and ideas there.
     I loved the article, and found Courtney's ranting and rambling to be mesmerizing, as usual. I chortled out loud several times, and felt like highlighting a few lines that resonated with me for various reasons. (I refrained, because I'd borrowed the magazine from a friend.)
     I'm also left with a nagging irritation that interviewer Stoller got some things wrong, and left some details blurry.
     For example, on the first page she describes Courtney thusly:

"In her babydoll dresses, combat boots, and smeared red lipstick..."

     When I read that, I looked up from the magazine and asked my husband, "Hey- do you remember ever seeing Courtney wearing combat boots?"
     He was playing Animal Crossing on his Nintendo DS, and was like, "What? I dunno. Why?"
     I read him the above description and was like, "I don't recall EVER seeing Courtney wear combat boots!" My pants were in a serious twist. I even marched in here to the computer and did a Google image search for "courtney love combat boots," and of course found no such thing. "Mary Janes" are the iconic Courtney Love babydoll kinderwhore footwear. Patent leather Mary Janes.


     I realize this all makes me sound like a crazy faggy lunatic, but seriously. If you're going to write about an icon like Courtney, shouldn't you get that kind of detail correct?
     Then, I read the part where Stoller mentions Courtney's forthcoming memoir for HarperCollins and some other projects:

"In addition to writing, she is also working on a fashion line called Never the Bride, and recently had a show of her artwork. (...) She brings out a bound book of her work and leafs through the pages with me. The images look to have been hastily created in watercolor and pencil."

     Stoller doesn't name the show or the book, so I had to do a little digging.
     The show in question must be 'AND SHE'S NOT EVEN PRETTY': THE ART OF COURTNEY LOVE, which I found info on HERE. I wish I knew if the book in question was something produced exclusively for that show. I searched "and she's not even pretty courtney love" on Amazon and couldn't find anything. Maybe Stoller was referring to DIRTY BLONDE: THE DIARIES OF COURTNEY LOVE. That's a big lavish coffee table art book with writings and drawings and photos, the 2006 publication of which was an event to us Courtneyfiles.
     I'm a little surprised that Stoller, co-founder of BUST, and feminist commentator, didn't clarify for us the title and availability of that "bound book" of Courtney's artwork. Is she just fucking with us? 'Cuz she makes a point to mention that Courtney autographed the book and gave it to her for keeps. GodDAMMIT.
     Maybe I should forgive Stoller for these oversights. At least she does tell us two specific song titles from Courtney's new band, which is now just called COURTNEY LOVE, instead of HOLE. The titles are WEDDING DAY and CALIFORNIA.
     In typical Courtney style, she tells Stoller,

"I've been offered money to do an oldies (tour) sort of thing," (...) "It's just not me."

     But on July 27th my husband and I saw Courtney and her COURTNEY LOVE band perform at the Grove in Anaheim and do exactly that. I don't care about the contradictions. I loved every minute of it. (But I do wish they would have played those new songs! Damn you, Stoller!!!)
   
   
   

CRAFT TIME : DIY Wallet

     I've made Duct Tape wallets before, and my last one finally got so grimy my husband insisted I replace it. So I tried something slightly different, using the same basic construction. I took some of my library comic strip art and reformatted it to be the right size and dimensions. After printing in color on photo paper, I laminated it with Contact Paper. Using a combo of clear packing tape and some Duct Tape, I made the wallet you see below.
     There are tutorials/patterns all over the internet. Here are a few:

(Ignore my fat Slovak fingers)
Open, with the exterior showing
The interior
     I used some old discarded library checkout cards to make interior pockets. One of them is from a book called NOBODY ELSE HAS TO KNOW by Ingrid Tomey, and the other is from TROUBLE ON THE TRACKS by Donna Jo Napoli.

The inside and interior are lined with plaid Duct Tape
The library checkout cards form pockets to stash stuff behind, plus there's a clear plastic pocket OVER them, so you can slip something like your Drivers License (or public library card) into it!
Do it!

     Next time, I plan to make one using the actual cover of a discarded paperback novel. The exterior would look like this:


     I like how cheesy that cover is. Of course I'd remove the remains of that barcode label.

SUMMER VACATION : Roswell Museum in New Mexico

This was one of the postcard images available in the museum gift shop.
I added the dialogue. ;)

     On our drive from Carlsbad Caverns to Grand Canyon we stopped briefly at the UFO Museum in Roswell, NM. It was hokey and quirky and I quite enjoyed it. Anthony and I got some good photos of some of the weird exhibits, including the life-size alien landing diorama. His photos are better than mine, but I'll share a few that I took:

Every 20 or 30 minutes the diorama "wakes up," and there are sound effects, the aliens heads move, the saucer whirls, lights flash, and fog gushes out. When we first arrived, the fog machine was going ape-shit crazy, and they had to turn it off. Which meant that we didn't get to take pictures of the diorama with spooky fog. :(

Anthony and me on the alien streets of Roswell

Alien autopsy diorama

Anthony and me in front of the alien landing diorama

Longshot of the museum interior. That horse is glittery, and has newspaper articles about the Roswell incident decoupaged all over its body. Don't see THAT every day.

Poor sad little alien in his cylinder

SUMMER VACATION : Bookstore


     On our road trip we stopped for the night in Tucson on the way to Carlsbad Caverns. I found a nearby used book store that sounded promising, and it turned out to be really cool. Bookmans has tons of used books arranged carefully by genre and author, with little reading nooks with comfy chairs. They also have CDs, DVDs, video games, board games, puzzles, and a weird "gallery" that is really more of a crazy gift shop full of consignment items.
     Their magazine section was huge, and included racks and racks of comic books! And they also had a graphic novel section. I've never seen a used book store with that many comic books/graphic novels.
     Here's what I got:
DEADFALL HOTEL novel by Steve Rasnic Tem
EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT DREAMS... (Sandman comic)
FOUR DEVILS, ONE HELL (Grendel graphic novel)
     Plus I picked up one of their genre reading lists, which are very much like the ones I make for the library I work in!
     As if I weren't already sold on Bookmans' quirkiness and broad range, there were also lots of people there with their DOGS! Really cute. I don't think I've ever been in a dog-friendly book store before.
(NOTE: Anthony and I discussed the missing apostrophe and the ensuing irritation, but I still loved this book store.)

     When we left, this weird, giraffy vehicle had appeared in the parking lot near our car:

     We stayed one night at "The Lodge On the Desert," and it was really nice and affordable. Would totally stay there again if we had a real good reason to be in Tucson, Arizona.

GLOSSARY
Giraffy : Adjective used to describe something that resembles a giraffe.

SUMMER VACATION : Cavern Doodle

"The Wrong Shoes"
pencil on sketchbook paper
Tommy Kovac, June 2013

     I should have paid attention to the pamphlet that said to wear shoes with good traction when hiking in via the natural cavern entrance. But I wore Converse High-Tops (Chucks), and as everyone knows, they have, like, ZERO traction. So I slipped and fell on my ass, then ALMOST fell twice more on our way down. I was unhurt, but shamed.

LEMON THORNS : Ancient Tattoo Technologies

     On March 25th I posted this: LEMON THORNS
     On May 23rd I was contacted by a "Prehistoric Archaeologist" in Tennessee who is researching "ancient and indigenous tattoo technologies." He had stumbled across my blog post, and asked if I'd be willing to prune and send to him a few short branches with big thorns. I agreed, of course, because that's a really unusual request, and sounds like interesting research.

Lemon tattoo
(Not to be confused with ancient tattoos made using lemon thorns as tattoo implements.)

     He is doing experiments replicating and testing non-metal tattoo implements, to create a library of microscopic use wear patterns that tattooing leaves behind on different tools. He hopes to use the data in the future to help identify tattoo implements in archaeological collections.

Tattooed lemon
(Also not to be confused with ancient tattoos made using lemon thorns as tattoo implements.)

     Apparently there are a bunch of indigenous groups in Southeast Asia that historically used lemon thorns to tattoo. Other groups also used buckthorn, black locust, and osage orange. So if you have any of these trees with big thorns, go ahead and try giving yourself a homemade tattoo! Just use ball point pen ink. Isn't that what they use in prison?
     On second thought-- don't do that.
     Anyway, this archaeologist has been unable to assemble a collection of really big lemon thorns, and I will be surprised if he doesn't consider our tree's thorns "big." They're, like, 3 inches long.

Lemon NECK tattoo! Yikes! Why?!!
(Found this while googling lemon tattoos)

MOTHER'S DAY 2013


     Just thought I'd share the little illo I did on my mom's Mother's Day card envelope. That's my mom pulling the wagon. My mom is the very best mom ever. :)
     I needed little boxes for her gifts, and I got crafty. So I'm sharing that, too.

I actually made the box on the left out of vellum card stock. The one on the right is "re-purposed."

Spray paint and doilies!

The bottoms of the boxes turned out really cool, I think.

NOTE TO SELF: There is no way for a guy to use or even mention "doilies" without seeming like a total nancy. I'm okay with that, but it seems like there should be some manlier alternative term for them. 

     Tomorrow morning my husband and I are taking our two wonderful mothers out to breakfast together, all four of us. That's our tradition. We are very lucky to have these two special ladies in our lives.
     Then after breakfast he takes his mom to the movies, and my mom and I go where the wind takes us. Maybe we'll do a craft, maybe we'll go shopping, maybe we'll play a game. We cannot be pinned down.

GALLERY 999 at Bats Day Black Market 2013


Welcome, foolish mortals...

The spooooooky entrance to the gallery

     In case you didn't know, every year there's a semi-official "Goth Day" at Disneyland where all the black-garbed, ratted-haired, and bat-loving people converge on the park. It's called Bats Day At the Fun  Park. There's a small convention held nearby called Bats Day Black Market, where you can buy all sorts of gothy clothes, accessories, etc. I've been there twice with my comic book publisher SLG and it's always fun and friendly.

A longshot of the gallery entrance, with my Aunt Wanda's spoooooky little blond head in the foreground

         This year the originator of the event, Noah Korda, invited me to participate in a group art show called Gallery 999. (Get it? Because the Haunted Mansion has 999 happy haunts. Duh.) Anyway, the idea is to create original artwork in any medium that pays tribute to the Haunted Mansion, which is obviously every good goth's favorite ride. (In my day in my 'hood we called ourselves "Deathrock," and the term "Goth" didn't pop up until years later when everybody's granny became aware of Marilyn Manson)

"VADER & PALPATINE, SITTING IN A TREE..." by yours truly

     Back to the art show. Noah said he wanted to put a twist on the art show this year because the Black Market happened to be the same day as "Star Wars Day." So our goal was to create artwork that paid tribute to the Haunted Mansion AND Star Wars, by somehow combining the two worlds.
     For some reason one of the first ideas that popped into my head was Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine having to share one of the Haunted Mansion "Doom Buggies," and it being all awkwardly cozy. So that's what I went with. Because it kept making me giggle.

"MANSION WOOBIE" an enhanced detail of VADER & PALPATINE, by yours truly

     Then, as usual, I ended up drawing something I really liked way at the bottom side edge of the picture, where you'd almost miss it. Which is why I used Photoshop to isolate and enhance it and make it its own thing. Mansion Woobie!

This thing was walking around on stilts and scared the shit out of me, but I like it. Check out the horned head in the foreground!

     My husband Anthony and I went to the event with our friend Matt, my mom, stepdad, and Aunt Wanda. I'm like Honey Boo-Boo-- I come with a family entourage. But we're not as annoying, and don't have as many chins.

Our friend Matt and a foxy lady

ARTS & CRAFTS


     This is just some in-progress stuff on my art table right now. I liked the juxtaposition of things. I love the fun mess of the process, when you've got all this stuff out and you're still trying to figure out which things to use, which elements to edit out, but for the time being it looks crazy and exciting.

PANTS

     I would like to take a few minutes to discuss my pants. And pants in general.
     I don't like pants, as a rule. If I could get away with it, I'd wear shorts all year 'round.
     Unfortunately for me, my workplace "strongly urges" us to dress professionally at all times, which means I NEVER wear shorts or even JEANS to work. Plus I have to wear a TIE. Shiiiiiit, man.
     My work pants are all wearing thin-- figuratively, and literally. So I finally had to shop for some new stupid unflattering work pants. It was a degrading, depressing experience, which reminded me of all the reasons I hate pants in the first place.

  •      They remind me that I'm FAT.
  •      They're too warm.
  •      I only wear them to work, so it feels like they should be provided free of cost. But they're NOT.
  •      They fit weird. Which reminds me of how weirdly-shaped I am. (Apparently)

     Take the new pair of pants I'm wearing today, for example. They're very snug in the legs and thighs, yet gape like pantaloons around the waist. I'm wearing a belt, but it creates weird sagging and bunching of fabric that I can't figure out how to distribute more attractively.
Do I look like Little Nemo and his clowny friend, in their weird pantaloons?

     This is not even just because of the whole skinny pants craze. I frequently had this same problem BEFORE the skinny pants invasion. It makes me feel like these pants are designed for a different species or something, like trying to wrestle myself into a pair of dog pants or something. Are my legs and thighs so disproportionately huge? And why does the waist droop? The baggy waist makes NO sense, because I am definitely a little fat most of the time. But I don't see how my legs and thighs can be so much FATTER than my waist! WTF?
     I worry about my pants on a daily basis. Are they too tight? Too droopy? Does my shirt bunch funny where it's tucked in? I've gone so far as to position a magnetic mirror on the metal cabinet in my office so that I can surreptitiously check my waist, crotch, and butt, to make sure everything is holding the line. Zipper up, etc?
     It's tiring. I need a vacation from pants.
   

IN THE DREAMHOUSE : Gummi Bear Cell Phone

     I dreamed my friend Laura picked me up on my lunch hour and drove us to the beach, where we went our separate ways, planning to meet up later. We were supposed to stay in contact with our cells, but I had this weird new cell phone that was rubbery, nubbly, and shaped like a big Gummi Bear. The keyboard was sort of virtual, in that there were no real keys, or markings to tell you where each letter was, you just had to imagine a keyboard wrapped around the body of the Gummi Bear and "type" across the surface of it. Obviously, that's very difficult and inexact, and I kept ending up with these totally garbled messages. I had to keep deleting and starting over.
Imagine this about the size of a chihuahua, and nubbly.

     The Gummi phone had a lens in its chest that would project images as holograms in mid-air, but the problem was everyone else could see them, too, and for some reason Laura kept texting me dirty pictures. I was horrified and embarrassed, and kept trying to turn the Gummi device OFF.
     Then I dreamed about a woman with an elephant-themed zine. There wasn't much to that part.
     The best part of the night was a dream in which I was perusing the aisles of a toy store. I have lots of toy store dreams. This one was very Lego-centric, with plastic facades for Lego playsets, such as a castle, and a dinosaur rock mountain complete with rubber dinosaurs and giant insects.
This isn't exactly what the playset in my dream looked like, but it's close.
I would have pooped my pants over this playset when I was a kid!

     Anthony was with me, and for some reason he had these boxes with him that were filled with his own vintage toys, which were fragile and valuable. Some dumb toddler boys kept trying to get into the boxes, and Anthony kept having to very politely remove their hands and get their attention away from the boxes. Their mother wasn't paying any attention to that. Even in my dreams, parents let their stupid kids run rampant.